


never break the shape we take

by eijanaika



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Relationship Study, Violent Sex, two awful people awfully in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 20:34:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20981972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eijanaika/pseuds/eijanaika
Summary: On the surface, Jack’s all expensive smiles and oozing charm, but underneath there’s a predator lurking in his bone marrow, growing stronger by the day; something cruel and vile and hungry for blood that’s justdyingto get out.Nisha can hardly wait.





	never break the shape we take

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: i wrote this solely for the purpose of making me sad.
> 
> title is from perfume genius' [slip away](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EVhFTw4igw) which is far more romantic than these two deserve, but there you go.

The first time she meets Jack is a murderous disappointment. 

Turns out, the cocksure voice that lured her up to Helios belongs to a low-level pretty boy with internal bleeding and big dreams way above his pay grade. Dreams that Nisha is here to make happen, if she can stop Dahl from smothering them in the crib first. 

Goddamn it, she signed up to find a vault, not to save the world. 

Nisha’s no hero, never tried to be. _The bandit who kills bandits,_ that’s how Jack had described her. Crudely apt, yes, but getting old; a moth-eaten moniker that no longer quite fits. She’s been cutting the fingers off bandit chieftains since she was a kid, she needs a new hobby. 

Opening a vault seemed as good a goal as any, and for some godforsaken reason, she thought Jack would be the one to help her do it, although this seems more and more unlikely. 

Watching the Lost Legion kick the shit out of her would-be employer, it’s tempting to call it quits right there. Nisha could grab the first escape pod she finds, leave the others to scrape Jack’s organs off the floor, see if any of Pandora’s clans have someone they need killed gruesomely. The usual gig. If the other vault hunters hadn’t been there, she might have, but the bastards leap ahead of her, throwing themselves into the firefight without hesitation, and Nisha may be many things, but she’s not a coward. If they aren’t running, then neither is she. She’d never live that down. 

Her fledgling coworkers mow down the enemy with an uncoordinated precision, leaving Nisha nothing to do but play the knight in shining armor. Cursing her slowness, she approaches Jack, who glares up at her, spitting out mouthfuls of blood just so he can complain; _you’re busy? That’s cool, I’ll just bleed out over here._

A real charmer, this one. 

She yanks him up by the forearm and jams a healing hypo into his neck with a toothy smile. He gets the message, replacing passive-aggression with a wholehearted _thank you,_ his shoulders straight and unflinching as he finds his footing. He might be a mouthy bastard, way in over his goddamn head, but at least he can take a hit. She appreciates that in a man. 

_Things can only get better from here,_ she assures herself. And hey, if they don’t, she can always shoot him in the kneecaps later. 

*

When Jack herds them into the moonshot canon with a shrug and some half-baked crap about being the hero, Nisha braces for the worst. 

She’s ready for the knife in the back, for Jack to deliver them to Dahl in exchange for his own life, or to shoot them into the sun just for the hell of it. It’s not until they’re burning through Elpis’ atmosphere that the realization hits her—Jack just sacrificed his life for theirs, all for the slim chance they survive the impact. 

It’s a sweet gesture, but stupid. Nisha would never take a bullet for anyone, or expect anyone to do the same for her. Still, she’s not complaining. More than that, she’s _interested._ In the hours they’ve been together, he’s already burrowed his way under her skin, hooked himself into her brain, so all her thoughts drag back to him. 

The bastard works fast, she’ll give him that. 

Packed in tight in the moonshot, Wilhelm’s elbow in her gut and Aurelia’s perfumed hair in her mouth, Nisha finds herself praying to whatever wretched god is out there that they survive this, just so she can make Jack buy her a drink. 

*

It’s not until after the nasty business with the Meriff that they get a chance to chew the fat, just the two of them. 

Nisha makes up some bullshit about staying behind to loot the corpse, _hey, finders keepers, right?_ which no one seems to believe, but her fellow vault hunters clear out without question when they see the look in her eyes. 

Finally, it’s just her and Jack, with only the dear departed Meriff’s desk between them, his traitorous brains coating the walls behind Jack’s head. She takes her time assessing him, her gaze crawling over every inch of his body, and he shivers like he can feel it. His pupils are blown wide open, the muscles in his jaw twitching, _drunk_ with power. It’s a good look for him.

“Shouldn’t have turned your back on him like that, honey,” she sighs, shaking her head, “that was sloppy work right there.” 

Jack blinks, momentarily disarmed, but he recovers quickly enough, his pretty face twisting into an ugly sneer. “Yeah, well, we can’t all run around shooting bandits for kicks on Pandora all day, can we? Some of us have to work.”

God, she’s going to _love_ breaking him in. 

“At least bandits are polite enough to shoot you in the face,” she counters, and Jack just shrugs, seemingly without a witty comeback for the moment. Nisha takes the opportunity to lean over the desk, lowering her voice until he has to strain to hear her. “But you handled that better than I expected. Didn’t freeze, didn’t hesitate. So how was baby’s first kill? Everything you’d hoped and dreamed?”

“Honestly? Kinda amazing.” Jack’s laugh is mean and bright, and then it’s as if something inside him remembers who he’s pretending to be and he stiffens back up, laughter evaporating into a drawn-out sigh. “Didn’t have to be this way, though. Stupid bastard.”

Nisha nods, biting her tongue, unblinking. When you look into Jack’s eyes you can see his future, as obvious as a fist to the face. On the surface, Jack’s all expensive smiles and oozing charm, but underneath there’s a predator lurking in his bone marrow, growing stronger by the day; something cruel and vile and hungry for blood that’s just _dying_ to get out. 

She can hardly wait.

*

In the end, it’s the wait that almost kills her. 

The Scavs, the kraggons, the Sentinel, Lilith—none of them even come close. Nisha weathers them all with ease, giving as good as she gets, all while feverishly praying that Jack comes true. That each act of depravity, each betrayal will push him closer and closer to the edge. Closer to her. 

When he finally finds her, his face masked, hands clawed and bleeding from Tassiter’s nails, she curses herself for ever doubting him. It was always going to end like this; she’s just lucky enough to have seen it coming. 

He grabs her by the hips and she lets him shove her against the window, hard enough to bruise. There’s no need for words, only his body on hers, and she runs her teeth across his neck, her fingers twisting the soft flesh of his thighs, pulling him into her. She guides his hand between her legs, slick and aching, and he grinds his palm against her until she shudders still, her body sweltering, boiling from the inside.

“Take off the mask, hero,” she whispers breathless into his mouth, his teeth stained purple with her lipstick. “Just this once. Just for me.”

It’s an order, not a question, but she’s still surprised when he obeys without a fight, unclasping his mask with shaking fingers. She rubs her thumb over the whorl of scarred flesh, mouthing at the skin beneath his deadened eye, and the way Jack’s breath catches in his throat goes straight to her gut. Pressing her mouth against his ear, she promises hellfire for all those who have betrayed them, reciting all the terrible ways they’re going to make Lilith pay until Jack comes with an agonized howl that hurts her ears. 

This is the Jack she’s been waiting for all this time, the one she’s murdered hundreds for, who no one else will see, scarred and furious. 

The Jack that’s all hers.

*

For their anniversary, Jack gives her a town, and in return she helps him tear down another.

They fuck in the ruins of New Haven, smoke in their lungs, blood half-dry beneath their nails. There’s a deep bruise across Jack’s neck, a parting gift from Roland, and Nisha sinks her teeth into it deep enough to taste his pulse, replacing his mark with hers.

Afterwards, they lie tangled together in the mess, her head on Jack’s chest, his fingers curled in her hair, swapping war stories. They make a damn fine team; Jack takes care of the big picture while she gets elbow-deep in the bloody minutiae. Pandora may be a festering sore on the face of the universe, but under her rule, Lynchwood will be different, and god help anyone who gets in her way.

Deep down, Nisha knows it might not last. She and Jack, their names are written in blood, not the stars. Just because she loves him doesn’t mean it’s forever. She loved her mother too once, before she was old enough to know better. 

Loving Jack is hard work, she knows that already, and it’ll be harder still bending Pandora to their will, yet for the first time in a long, lonely time, she’s ready to try.

*

The thing about Jack is that he’s completely insane.

That's not exactly unusual down here, but all in all her days rubbing elbows with the psychos and scum-stains of Pandora, Nisha’s never met anyone who buys their own bullshit as much as he does, let alone expects everyone else to eat it up just as easily.

It’s not like she doesn’t try. Lord knows she tries, she really does, even though it wears on her. _Love is sacrifice,_ her father taught her that much. _Love is lying to yourself._

Day after day she recite the lines just like Jack would, preaching cold-leaded law & order with a bloody fist, but the words won’t reach her heart. When she razes a bandit village to the ground, it’s because the sight of it makes her feel warm and fuzzy inside, nothing more. 

Nisha’s spent her whole life on either side of the knife, and she knows exactly which one she prefers. Words like _civility_ and _honor_ are just as big of an excuse to murder with impunity as the badge on her chest, she knows that as well as the poor bastards with their heads in the nooses do. 

And Jack must know it as well, deep down, only he’d never admit it, not even to her. For him, every train full of civilians slaughtered is a dazzling act of heroism; the gallant boot stamping down on the face of Pandora, justified and always necessary. 

She’d be lying if she said she didn’t miss the simplicity of bloodsport, of the olden days of skag-eat-skag. Jack’s Pandora is a world she hardly recognizes anymore. 

“He’s just so goddamn—”

“Crazy?” finishes Wilhelm. They’re getting day-drunk on the porch of the sheriff’s office, commemorating the good ol’ days, only Nisha can’t stop bringing up the bad shit. Wilhelm makes for a terrible relationship counselor, but he’s brought her five crimson raiders and they look so pretty hanging in the gallows that she forgives him for it. 

“Right?” If anyone else said that about _her_ Jack she’d feed them their own kidneys, but Wilhelm’s good people. Keeps his mouth shut when it matters. “And not always in the fun way.” 

Wilhelm gives her a look that says _well, what the hell did you expect,_ but he chooses his words with more care. “He’s allowed to be, as long as the money’s good.”

“If you say so.” That’s the real problem with Wilhelm; he has a strictly mercenary mindset, sees the world only in lump sums, but Nisha’s never been one for the finer things in life. Most of the time they’re lies, foiled in gold, weak and useless beneath the surface. 

Everything she’s not. Everything Jack shouldn’t be. 

She wants to explain all of this to Wilhelm, but he wouldn’t care. She barely recognizes him these days, truth be told, so stuffed full of metal and wiring that it hurts to meet his eyes. Instead, she commits to drinking him under the table, leaving him passed out on the steps so she can stagger back to her quarters uninhibited, snarling at anyone that dare meet her eyes. 

Lying on her bed, she calls Jack just to pick a fight, snarling drunk and jittery and mean. He takes it in stride, voice calm and measured as he calls her a _heartless bitch,_ and Nisha can’t remember what she threatened to do to him, only that she hung up on him by throwing her ECHO device so hard against the wall it broke in two. 

The next day, she wakes around noon with a killer hangover and a brand new ECHO device lying on her doorstep, painted a shiny chrome-purple that she can see her frown reflected in. It burns a hole in her pocket as she heads out to the range, shooting rakks out of the sky until her trigger finger is stiff and aching, eyes fixed on Elpis, thinking of nothing. 

*

It’s two years before she works up the venom to ask about the photograph on his desk. 

All this time she’s told herself, perhaps childishly, that if she just _ignores_ it, it will go away. Yet every time she visits Jack’s office, she’s greeted by the same smiling brat, beaming up at her with puppy dog eyes from behind the glass. 

It’s enough to make her stomach turn. 

Nisha’s always hated children, their fragile little bodies and empty heads, even when she was one herself. It baffles her that Jack, a man who disciplines his employees by throwing their pets out of airlocks, doesn’t feel the same way. 

(Then again, Jack was married once, his young wife soft and kind and pliable. Unlike Nisha in every way. 

There’s a rumor floating around that she was gunned down by bandits, and another that points the finger at him. Nisha tries to imagine a young, lowly Jack with his hands around his wife’s throat, her mascara running down her ashen cheeks, her pretty mouth foaming red. 

Unsurprisingly, the image is more _erotic_ than it is disturbing. 

Like she said, they’re nothing alike.)

She picks up photo frame, holding it suspended above her head, and drags her index finger across the glass, smudging over the eyes beneath. “You never told me who this is.”

“Huh?” Jack’s gaze snaps up from his work. “Oh, that’s…. that’s Angel.” He clears his throat, eyebrows knitted. “My daughter.”

“Cute.” She has to resist the urge to roll her eyes. “So when are you gonna introduce us?” 

She watches Jack’s surprise dry up into suspicion, and he swipes the photo from her hands and sets it back on his desk with a thud. “Dunno,” he snaps, “how about you get that vault open for me first and I’ll think about it.” 

It might as well be a _never._

Nisha can’t help the way her jealousy hits, like a thousand tiny needles shoved through her heart. She may be an old-fashioned woman, technologically illiterate, but she isn’t stupid. She knows the Angel in the photograph is the same guardian angel leading the crimson raiders around in circles, the virus who invades minds and bends entire cities to her will. 

_Daughter_ is far too simple of an explanation; Angel is so much more than that. She’s Jack’s champion, his secret weapon, but more than that, she’s proof of the expanse between them, proof that Jack will never trust her, not fully. 

She hears Wilhelm’s voice in her head, full of reproach: _well, what did you expect?_ She’s not sure she even knows anymore. 

It’s not like she craves romance—flowers on the bedsheets, or puerile mercenary-day declarations of undying love. She’d rather blow both their brains out. 

No, what she needs is a partnership, both professional and sexual. An equal. Jack would be nothing without her, yet these days she feels less like his girlfriend and more like his employee, their relationship stuck on a strictly _need-to-know_ basis. 

How the hell did she let things get this way?

She wants to tie him to his damn chair and spool out his guts with her fists, rip off his mask and peel off his handsome face with her teeth until he confesses his sins, tells her what she wants to hear (what does she want to hear, exactly? She’ll know it when she hears it, she supposes). She almost does, until she remembers that Jack would rather die than give an inch, the stubborn, arrogant bastard that he is. 

Isn’t that what she loves about him, his vile, selfish determination? They have that in common—or at least, they did.

Instead, she bottles her anger—an act that would’ve been _unthinkable_ just a few years ago, yet she finds herself doing more and more these days, never getting any better at it, and it all comes spilling out of her like floodwater as soon as her boots hit Pandora, and the planet quakes beneath her as if it knows it’s going to pay for it. 

*

Opportunity is a metallic skeleton of a city, a glorified office space, glimmering and gaudy as all hell. Nisha would prefer the splinters and eridium-poisoned waters of Lynchwood any day, but this is Jack’s city, not hers, so she plays nice as he shows her around (or her version of nice, at least). Most of it bores the hell out of her, save for the statue in the middle of town—a bronzed Jack posing heroically, his boot planted on some despairing crimson raider’s chest, smearing him into the concrete. That she likes. 

This is all just foreplay. Jack’s systematic in breaking down her defenses, lowering her guard until he can snap her open with his bare hands, dig into the soft meat beneath. Laying a trap for her.

The entire tour, Jack’s contrite, almost apologetic—or at least pretending to be. He plays the perfect gentleman with ease his arm snug around her waist, plying her with lab grown steak and glasses of million dollar champagne that taste like skag piss and all the while she’s just _waiting_ for it. 

More and more, sex with Jack is a fight to the death. A bullet with her name on it sailing through the dark, bursting through her flesh when she least expects it. It’s barely fun anymore, even less satisfying, yet she keeps coming back for more, like a goddamn fool, but that’s what she is now. Elpis has rewritten her DNA, hollowed her out just to fill her back up with furious yellow bile. She’s killed one god, championed another. If her father could see her now, even he wouldn’t recognize her. 

(Her mother would recognize her, though. She was nothing if not prophetic.) 

This time, Jack takes things slow. He has a reptilian patience, lying in wait until they’re back in the hotel room, her back turned to him as she pulls off her boots. It’s cowardly, yes, but it’s not like he could take her head on, so when he kicks her legs out from under her she forgives him before she hits the floor.

This is the first time anyone’s gotten the jump on her in years, and Jack follows it by jamming a Hyperion brand taser into her side with so much force her bones convulse in their sockets. She’s a limp, stuttering mess when Jack rolls her onto her back, his knees pining her shaking thighs to the floor. He pulls her waistband down just low enough to jam two fingers inside her, his other hand squeezing her windpipe until all she can hear is the blood rushing through her head as she claws at the carpet, surrendering to the shuddering heat that crawls through her arteries, her orgasm slicing through her like a knife through the gut.

Jack keeps her strung-out and choking until her climax has soaked through her completely, then releases her one with final squeeze, her throat sore and constricted in the comedown.

If she hadn’t come just then, Jack might’ve killed her. Another day like today and he _will,_ unless she kills him first; _til death do us part._ They don’t need to say the vows; it’s a simple fact, a biological imperative. The two of them are apex predators, circling the other going on years now, committing pressure points and old wounds to memory. It’s no longer a matter of _if,_ but _when._

Some day, but not today. 

As soon as Nisha can feel her limbs again she returns the favor by chipping one of Jack’s perfect teeth against her knuckles, then rides him raw while he spits blood on the carpet, her pistol jammed beneath his chin, goading him on until he spills himself inside her.

Afterwards, he rolls her off of him and wraps his arms around her shoulders, holding her so tight against him she feels her chest might burst. She doesn’t feel safe, no, not completely, but safe enough.

*

Wilhelm dies like a dog; although with the way Jack tells it, his voice ruptured by laughter through the ECHOcomms, she suspects they have different definitions of the phrase. 

Dogs die with their brains bashed out, not gunned down by vault hunters; their bodies pumping pure poison instead of blood, all in service of some master plan. _Had to get my power core into Sanctuary somehow, y’know?_ Jack explains to her, nice and slow, like she’s as stupid as she feels. _Couldn’t look too easy. Gotta sacrifice the pawn to save the king._

What role does she play in this scenario? A year ago, she would’ve said the queen, but now she’s not so sure.

“I don’t need to start watching what I eat, do I?” Out of the Elpis crew, she’s the only one left standing beside him now. Wilhelm may have been more machine than man by the end, but he was loyal. Not without uses. She won’t say he deserved better than being poisoned by his own boss—she’s not naive, none of them do—but hearing the details still make her heart beat that much quicker.

“As if poison would work on you.” She can hear him leaning back in his chair. Reveling in the details. “Nah, if I wanted you dead I’d have to put the whole planet through a meat grinder.”

“So you’ve thought about it.”

“Well, yeah.” A beat. “Don’t you?”

Nisha says nothing. Holds her cards close to her chest, trigger fingers itching, her eyes scanning the room. Shifting through the shadows.

If she were to kill Jack, how would she do it? Not with poison, that’s for sure. Too detached for her tastes, too impersonal. No, she’d opt for something messier, but just as slow; a bullet through the gut, or a knife opening up the rungs of his ribcage, one by one, until she can reach in and squeeze his heart into pulp.

She’d take her time, too. Catalogue every inch of his suffering: the rage in his eyes, the threats, the pleading. She’d want to make him hurt, but there’d be no small part of her that wasn’t savoring their final moments together, dragging out the torturous seconds before he expires and the universe is emptier for it.

Killing Jack would be like killing her puppy all over again: brutal and necessary, but not easy. Nothing about him is easy. 

God, she’d miss him. Even after all the shit he’s put her through, her chest still hurts with the thought of it. There’ll never be another Jack, that’s for sure. He’s one of a kind; a brilliant, terrible light eating this shitty universe from the inside out. 

But then again, isn’t she?

*

“You and me, ‘Nish,” Jack murmurs in her ear, “we’re gonna tear this goddamn universe in half.” 

It’s as close to _I love you_ as he’ll ever get. It’s as close as she needs.

*

It’s a little less than an hour before noon when the vault hunters finally wash up on her doorstep, so Nisha rounds up the difference and challenges them to a duel right then and there. 

Deep down, she’s _glad_ they’re here, even after the goddamn mess they’ve made of her little town. She’s been going crazy with anticipation, her thoughts racing black and red through her skull, ants before the storm. They murdered Wilhelm, and now they’re here for her—but only as an afterthought, a pit stop on their grand quest to ruin all of Hyperion’s hard work.

She’s not sure what’s more insulting—that they think she earned her town on her back, or that they think they’ll kill Jack before she can. No matter what way you look at it, they have a score to settle. 

It’s been so long since she’s had a real challenge that when the vault hunters carve through her marshals in a matter of seconds she isn’t angry, she’s _delighted._ God, she needs this. She’s been dying for a real challenge. 

Even when they turn on her with death in their eyes she isn’t worried. One of the bastards isn’t even human, another is barely more than a child. There’s even a goddamn siren, but she looks like nothing compared to Lilith, so Nisha can’t bring herself to feel much fear.

_Hell,_ she thinks as she rushes to meet them, _I’ve had worse odds._

Death doesn’t register until she’s on her back, body heavy and leaking, her gun lying empty in her twitching fist. _No,_ she tries to scream at them, lungs filling with blood, _it was supposed to be him. You stupid fucking bandits, don’t you get it? It’s only ever been him._

It doesn’t matter, they’re not listening, and even if they were, they wouldn’t understand.

Vision greying at the edges, Nisha scans the faces of her murders, taking in their easy smiles and darkened eyes. They wear their greed honestly, leering down at her with none of the self-righteous fury of the crimson raiders, and it makes the blow a little easier to swallow. Nisha’s always hated liars. 

Are they strong enough to kill Jack—beautiful, mad Jack with all his stupid jokes and blood-tinged dreams, who threw their lives away time after time in search of a vault? Nisha doubts it, but there’s a small part of her that hopes they can, if only so Pandora knows that she and Jack were brought to hell by the same godless enemy, equalised in death. Closing her eyes, she promises herself that she’ll drag her broken body through hell just to find him, to hold him in her arms one last time. To kill him again herself. 

It’s as good an image as any to go out on, and she holds it tight in her mind as her mind detaches from the rest of her, Helios a shapeless grey blur in the sky above, blotting out the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> the references to jack poisoning wilhelm in order to manipulate the vault hunters comes from [this unused BL2 audio](https://youtu.be/q6eQ5Ev0gTg?t=411) which i am choosing to believe is canon because it's just such a delightfully jack thing to do.


End file.
